Demons
by malfoygrangers
Summary: He's a traitor and now he can't stop running from the demons that hunt the traitors of the dark. Trapped with the Order and he's got nowhere left to hide. A mudblood and a defected deatheater hiding behind masks, both refusing to give up. Something's going to give. "HOW MUCH OF YOU IS EVEN REAL, GRANGER?" Rated M for a reason.
1. White

**Demons**

**Inspiration: Demons – Imagine Dragons (I recommend you listen to it while reading. It's an absolutely beautiful song)**

**Rating: MA**

**Warnings: Mild profanity, explicit sexual situations, minor character death**

**Beta: Thank you to my wonderful beta Alexandria Roth that I managed to find on Tumblr**

**DISCLAIMER: JK Rowling owns all entities associated with Harry Potter and this fanfiction is in no way making a profit for myself personally.**

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**Chapter 1: White**

It wasn't supposed to feel so heartbreaking. This wasn't the _way _it was meant to be. As if a part of himself was ripped away. He wasn't meant to feel. He never _wanted_ to feel.

But it happened. And it hurt like fucking fire. It was kind of ironic. He'd burnt all the people who'd gotten too close and now he was burning on the inside. The fire within him was destroying him, tiny flakes of charred mess falling to the floor.

And despite the fact that it felt like he was being torn apart from the very seams, he wouldn't have traded what had happened for his fucking short life.

He gave one last look at the dilapidated house in which he'd bore resident to only for a night and thought of the witches and wizards whom he'd accompanied for _months._

This was inevitable – the leaving. He couldn't pretend anymore. And it was time to tell this story from the very beginning.

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Draco haggardly walked through the rough terrain of the forest like a marathon runner at the end of his laps, constantly checking behind him, senses on high alert as branches whipped past him, snagging his clothes and breaking his weak skin. He hissed harshly as the stabbing in his gut returned through the haze of pain potions, mind dazed from the drugs – that or the Cruciatus curse.

He didn't know anymore. He could barely tell where he was walking.

The harsh branches whipped through the pathetic scraps of weak fabric that lined his body. Devouring tendrils of vines curled like taunting snakes with a venomous bite around him in tenacity. He was a beast trapped in a cage. The dappled rays of the weary sun stole through the thick forest, lighting a dim path lined with distastefully white tulips that sprang from the slithering forest floor. He paused, breath as harsh as a lion while his wounds trickled violent crimson red blood. A single drop of scarlet water fell, suspended in air for a moment, before inevitably plummeting to a pristine white tulip's petal. The scarlet pierced the thin fabric of nature's petal before falling and returning to the earth but the faint outline of what used to be his blood's path now marred the once immaculate and untouched blossoming envision.

One could never wash away the tainted hands that touched the beast.

His ears detected a low rustle of branches to his left and he furrowed his brows in manic confusion, nostrils flared with fiery fiend. They would've killed him with a spell if they were within earshot. But they _couldn't _be. He'd made sure. He'd made that it would take a day at the least to track him down. Track him fucking down and steal the light from his very eyes.

If they'd found him already. He was the walking dead.

The numbing anxiety wrapped around him like a scarf and pressed down on his shoulders with the weight of death, life, time and eternity.

There was no point in running when he was going to die in the end anyway. Yet that animalistic instinct that forced him into survival refused to let him give in and the hard reality of truth was pushed aside, behind guilt and self-loathing.

His head hesitantly turned to the source of the noise and found a slit of dreadfully pure white disappearing in the long grass beyond the forest – a rabbit. A rabbit with porcelain white innocent fur that shone like diamonds. He breathed a shaky sigh of hazy relief – the brief panic filled moment that had choked his heart dispersing momentarily. His breath condensed in the below freezing temperature and Draco Malfoy clad only in destroyed jeans and a torn plain black sweater over what used to be a crisp white oxford shirt stained with crusted blood was stumbling around with numb limbs and a choking weight of restlessness on his chest.

Draco's hands shook, frozen around his wand, his gaze venturing beyond the creature of purest white in the grass to find a miniature cottage in the open meadow.

With chattering teeth, he walked to what looked to be an abandoned cottage with peeling white paint and shattered windows. It would be shelter for the night – from the stark white snow and frigid cold that invaded the evening air as the sun's rays began to retreat behind the horizon, darkness readying itself to steal the earth.

He would have to leave in the morning to keep running. He would never be able to stop running. _They _would always be on his trail. Like a pack of wolves with the scent of his blood on their nostrils.

But for one night he would have a bed to rest his throbbing mind and deadly injuries from dark curses and hope that the white oblivion of sleep would be forgiving. The distant drumming of a headache echoed distinctly in his mind, strong as a castanet of a Spanish dance – seductive, animalistic.

He staggered out of the cover of the dense forest and into the open meadow of long grass that reached his knees.

Draco walked as fast as his body would allow him to, pain radiating from the fresh wounds on his limbs paired with what felt like thin knifes piercing through his abdomen – a bloodlust of fiery vengeance. It might just be a few broken ribs or it might be a fucking curse. He had absolutely no clue as blood seeped through his clothing; unforgiving.

With a trembling hand he approached the creaking porch step that sounded like a wounded animal before gruffly turning the rusted brass doorknob and pushing open the damp, mouldy wood.

Draco squinted in the darkness of the hallway for a hesitating moment before fatigue stole his wariness and he began walking forwards towards where an eerie white light flickered in the distance, fighting against the encroaching night that threatened the white brilliance of day.

He gravitated to the faint light that seemed to exude warmth, biting his lip painfully to keep his teeth from chattering. He was too far from reality to notice a faint chattering in the distance, his brain refusing to question why there was a light in a supposedly abandoned cottage.

He staggered into the room lit by the dying sun's rays and a fireplace that roared like a fire and froze in complete shock, the clockwork of his brain refusing to turn in realisation.

The inhabitants of the room watched him with widened eyes as they observed one another for a moment in astonishment, movements halted in their place, time ticking to a halt.

The faces of Dean Thomas, Nymphadora Tonks and Hermione Granger were illuminated by the burning fire, all with mouths open to form perfect 'o's.

There was a moment when none of them moved, Draco's wand still in his hand but now hanging limply, arm dropped to his side without even the thought of defending himself.

And then all of a sudden, it was as if something in their minds clicked in place from the pressure of War. And chaos ensued.

He was mildly aware of the people in the room all standing up at once with wands drawn before they lunged at him with practiced athleticism and dexterity, knocking his wand out of his hand as he landed with a groan on an arm he'd only just discovered to be broken. And before Draco could even struggle, bodies converged on him with mesmerising agility until finally a white spell hit him in the temple. He saw darkness and the clear sheer brilliance of white.

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The first thought that came to his mind when he woke up was where his wand was. Panicking with white terror, he tugged at the coarse rope that was binding his wrists behind his back and looped around his ankles to the point in which he was losing sensation in his toes. Attempting to stand up on his own, he stumbled wildly before collapsing again into the rickety old chair. Dread filled him as he found himself defenceless and restrained.

Breathing harshly through his nose, he forced the unforgiving emotions down, reverting back to a calm façade. He noted the fact that he was no longer experiencing any pain, only the weary throbbing in his mind as an after effect of the Cruciatus that nobody could remove. They'd either healed him or given him a _very_ strong pain potion.

Footsteps approached the room in which he was currently tied to, the fireplace still flickering in the corner.

"Come on, Luna. Just walk a little faster," a male voice urged.

"You try carrying a child, Mister," the ethereal, demanding voice of Luna Lovegood floated to his ears.

He immediately stopped struggling at his bindings and continued pretending to still be completely out of it. Draco assumed he'd only blacked-out for a minute or so as they were only just ushering a _pregnant_ Lovegood into the room.

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Hermione took in a deep shuddering breath before stepping behind Luna, still concealed in the darkness of the hallway. It was time for a performance, she told herself calmly. Get the information out of him. That's all. It's time to give them a show.

And with that, she stowed away the emotions behind a numb exterior and conjured fake anxiety, fear and anger in a mask of perfection.

Nobody knew but her. Nobody knew that all the emotions she showed weren't real. Nobody knew.

Everybody only knew the innocent, anxious Hermione they all saw in school.

They just needed to get information out of him. _One _job – that was all. This was War. There was no room for waste and no room for weakness. And she simply _refused_ to be the weakest link in the team.

She stepped out calmly in the light as her face morphed into calculated disgust.

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"What should we do with him?" The anxious voice of an innocent Hermione Granger spoke. He could recognise that voice anywhere.

"He made no attempt at harming us even when he was armed," Tonks said soothingly.

"Well he wouldn't. He was greatly out-numbered not to mention badly injured," Hermione protested.

"What I want to know was how he got those injuries. Someone obviously put up a fight against him. I bet he was trying to convert them. The bastard," said a voice in which Draco assumed to be Dean Thomas.

"How did he find us in the first place? The wards should've kept him out. He can't have brought them down on his own," Hermione worried and Draco watched intently at her still hands, _too _still.

"The wards are protected against people who mean ill intent," Tonks responded curiously.

"Then why is he here?"

"Accident, I suppose," the vibrant haired witch shrugged.

"It's got to be some sick joke of You-Know-Who's," Hermione hissed.

He frowned to himself. Why would such strong fighters like these be referring to the Dark Lord with that ridiculous name? Especially Granger. She was the most stubborn witch he'd ever met. She would never―

Ah yes, the taboo.

"But how would he have gotten through the wards if he was still on You-Know-Who's side?"

"We should check the Wards. It's meant to be impossible."

"He did have a wand. You think he broke them?"

"I told you. It's impossible. No one can bring down the Wards alone."

"Then how did he do it?"

"Maybe you can ask Draco yourself," a soft delicate voice whispered. "He's been awake for some time now."

Draco rolled his eyes at the observant witch who was most evidently a little mad. She was perceptive at the least.

Feeling the sharp, attentive gaze of the occupiers of the room, he reluctantly opened his eyes to shoot a glare at the dirty blonde witch with a swollen stomach.

His eyes travelled from one face to the other, each with varying familiarity before finally landing on a frowning Hermione Granger standing rigidly beside a chair in a crinkled white shirt marred with tiny flecks of dried blood. With scornfully raised eyebrows, he observed her intently, smirking slightly at a blossoming purple bruise on her jaw in which she must've acquired from him in the blazing limbs of chaos earlier.

She studied him back with a lilting gaze, rosy pink lips to form a sneer of disgust that trembled from the pressure of holding it. "Explain," she demanded, roughly.

He continued directing his gaze towards her, eyes a pale stormy grey that seemed to glisten with unshed rain and cackle with pent up electricity. She refused to flinch as his eyes searched her face for a crack in her mask, silver orbs penetratingly clear.

"I said, _talk!_" Hermione commanded, stepping forwards with mock irritation in the hope of a distraction for him as panic swept over her after he'd stared at her for far longer than necessary.

Draco scoffed to himself and ignored the fact that her emotions seemed _too _smooth, _too_ perfect.

"For god's sake, Malfoy. _EXPLAIN_," she yelled, gaining confidence that her façade was working. She was an expert on this after all. And yet each and every time someone stared at her for too long or whenever she met someone knew she would be gripped with the abhorred anxiety and panic of discovery.

Her eyes focused back on the insolent wizard that refused to speak; his lips still decisively shut as her cracking impatience radiated off of her in waves.

The others in the room grumbled, fuming at his lack of speech. He resisted the urge to grin at their extremities in emotion. Emotions were so fickle, especially at a time like this.

"I say we get rid of him," an aggressive Thomas bit contemptuously.

"We could get information out of him!" Hermione protested, pushing back to her original cause. "Besides, he's no danger right now. He's unarmed and bound."

He forced himself to ignore the fact that they were speaking of him as if he were an animal behind glass.

"Look at him! He's most definitely not talking."

"It wouldn't harm us to keep him around for a little longer to see what we can get," she objected despite how uneasy he made her feel. She _refused_ to be the weakest link.

_I don't know about that, Granger_, he thought to himself. Draco Malfoy was most certainly not a person one would want to keep around for more than a few hours. Because a few hours could be all it took for his demons to catch up to him once more. Nothing, absolutely _nothing_ was safe in his path.

"He's a death eater!"

"And this is _War._ We've got to take what we can get."

"Hermione, I know we've listened to your decisions on nearly everything so far, but we need to get rid of him. You-Know-Who could already be looking for him."

_Oh they were_, Draco thought bitterly. _Just not in a particularly friendly manner_.

"You can't!" She exclaimed.

"Why on earth not? He's putting all of us in danger."

"But this is War; we're all in danger regardless."

"He's not only going to threaten us, but _Harry_ too. Imagine if You-Know-Who found us. Harry would come back here and the Death Eaters would be waiting!"

Draco's eyes lifted at the mention of the famous wizard's name. "I'm still here you know. Where are Potter and Weasley? Surely the Golden Trio aren't separated?"

An unspoken hush fell across the room as all eyes turned back to the platinum blonde with haunting eyes.

"Did he just speak?" Tonks whimpered softly.

"_Malfoy_," Hermione demanded in a vehement hiss that reflected how she was feeling inside. "How did you get through the wards?"

He cocked a brow, lips pursed shut once again.

Hermione groaned loudly in frustration as her inner-self stammered. "We're not going to tell you a single thing about Harry so how about you quit that unnerving thing where you just stare at us. _How, _Malfoy? Tell us."

Draco rolled his eyes at the stubborn witch whose voice was grating on his senses aggravatingly. "Why would I?" His voice was hoarse from dehydration and terribly soft but she heard it in the deathly silent room.

"Because I need to know," she answered softly, hard brown eyes meeting his in calculated honesty.

"It must be infuriating for you to not know something wouldn't it?" He laughed softly underneath his breath.

"Malfoy," she forced out between clenched teeth. "You're lucky we didn't kill you. Tell me how you got through those wards."

"Why?"

"_Because_," she emphasised. "Because I need to know! I need to know how you got through your wards. Nobody with ill intent can get through them and you obviously do, yet you obviously _still got through_." Hermione sucked in a deep breath of air. "_HOW?"_

"You think that for the sake of your own peace of mind is a good reason?" His clear grey orbs met hers once again and she nearly staggered at the force of it, completely forgetting about her performance.

She needed to leave _now_. _Now, _before he found out. She was too protective of herself to let anyone else know, let alone the Death Eater.

"_MALFOY_!" She shouted in faultlessly symmetrical detesting enragement so smooth that even she was amazed by the performance before storming out of the room, slamming the door of the living room shut on her way out.

Dean shrugged with no qualms of guilt. "Now that Hermione's gone, let's get rid of him and make sure the wards never allow him to return."

Draco shot him a glare as the idiot manhandled him up to a standing position, his arms still tied behind his back and ankles bound together.

"Tonks can you help me?"

His wand was the only protection he had from his demons; the hunters. No way in bloody hell was he going out there without his wand. _No fucking way_. The snowy blonde jerked away before stumbling into the arms of his relative, cursing underneath his breath.

"You can't make him leave," Nymphadora Tonks murmured.

"What?" Dean replied in surprise.

"You can't. I don't care if he's a death eater, he's still my cousin. He's defenceless. He has no wand. Can't we just see what else he can tell us?"

Draco had been in the ranks long enough to know the basics of the Order's strategy. In each Order base group, there was always at least one adult. Their caregiver. This was a rather minor base group but Harry Potter was important enough to guarantee a qualified Auror. And nobody defied their caregiver. Despite what stupid decisions they made like this one.

It was as if Draco was the only one who knew his true threat. Everybody else was just too blind to see the fire that followed him like a demon.

"Tonks," Dean tried to reason.

"No. We're keeping him for a little longer. Unbind him but make sure he doesn't find his wand."

"Come on, Tonks. He's dangerous!"

"Quiet, Dean. He can't do any harm without his wand," the elder witch berated.

"What if he tries to contact You-Know-Who? He could give away our position."

Draco scoffed to himself. There was no way he was willingly going to contact that bastard.

"He can't. The wards, remember? Nobody can reach us unless it's by patronus and I certainly don't believe the Death Eaters have enough joy to create one."

"He's already brought down the wards once, who says he can't do it again?"

The blonde Slytherin practically groaned at the _absolute_ fucking _stupidity_ of this Gryffindor. This idiot should've died _long_ before.

"_He doesn't have a wand, Thomas_," Tonks practically shouted in exasperation. Apparently the two relatives agreed on at least one thing. "Don't try to talk me out of it. Malfoy could be valuable."

Grumbling fervently like a rabid beast, he moved to Draco and began using his wand to sever the rope roughly. Scarlet blood leaked through rough gashes of skin from the unhandy work, flowing out to drop onto the moulded wood of the floor or to seep into his already blood-crusted clothes.

"Take him to a bedroom, Thomas. He must be freezing," the witch said tiredly, sinking into the exposed foam of the sofa. "And make sure he doesn't find his wand."

The Slytherin flinched at the contact as Dean dragged the ragged wizard through a hallway of creaking floorboards to a room with a single mattress laid haphazardly in the middle of the room.

He resisted the urge to make a remark at the state of their living, instead, remaining resolutely silent, waiting for the door to shut behind the dense Gryffindor before collapsing into the cushioning surface of the mattress in exhaustion.

His shoulders trembled painfully as the sudden severity of the situation welled up once again. The striking emotion and the absolute dreaded terror. He knew that death was coming to him. Draco Malfoy fucking knew. And he was helpless to it all.

It was all his fucking fault. He _had_ to disregard orders didn't he? He _had_ to have morals. He _had_ to set the white innocent free. And all at his fucking own cost.

All he had to do was keep an eye on them. _That was all._ And even he screwed that up.

And now the torturous screams of the innocent slaughtered before his very eyes mingled with his own in deadly harmony.

He fucking _had_ to let the emotions conquer him for that moment didn't he? _Just_ like what he was doing now.

Draco found a flimsy jar filled with porcelain white ribbons and threw it violently against the wall with shaking hands, now definitely not shaking from the cold but instead with white hot rage.

Several shards of glass were embedded into the weak plaster walls and he found himself feeling as if it wasn't enough so he found another jar and threw it.

And another.

And another.

And a lamp.

"Are you _mad_?" The angry voice of a calculated livid Hermione Granger seethed furiously, wrenching the door open. It was time for another try after she'd disappointed herself in the living room earlier. Hermione had spent the last half hour picking apart his words and his movements until she was positively _certain _that he'd known nothing about her show at all. She would _not _be the weakest link.

"Just let me go," he hissed, hands trembling as he attempted to steady himself.

"How do we know you're not a spy?"

"If I were a spy, letting me go would be the reasonable thing to do."

She carefully narrowed her eyes at the wizard with dishevelled snowy white hair, skin as pale as the moon and rosy lips that seemed to quiver just the slightest as he breathed in harshly. "We can't just let a spy of You-Know-Who's go. You could give us valuable information."

Draco nearly walked up to shake her. Everyone here seemed so fucking hell-bent on getting information out him. "Ask me if I want a death wish."

"Shut it, Malfoy."

"What makes you think I'm a spy in the first place?"

Hermione furrowed her brows slightly in correct and unflawed confusion, mirroring exactly what she'd been doing earlier in the evening. "What else would you be?"

He shrugged, shaking off the eerie vibe the witch before him gave off. It was as if she was under the imperius – every single emotion was immaculately clean with no raw edges. "What if I told you? You wouldn't believe me anyway."

"That's for me to decide."

"I disgust you."

She raised an eyebrow at the turn of conversation. She wasn't expecting this. She was expecting a few protests to her requests on information and that would be all. She hadn't _prepared_ for this. Hermione took in a deep breath of air and focused on what she knew best – Hogwarts. "You were never this serious about anything at Hogwarts."

"We're not at Hogwarts anymore, Granger."

She nodded. "I understand. You're still the same rude, arrogant bastard from school though."

"We're 19, Granger. Fucking _nineteen_. This War has been going on for _two _fucking years. I think you should forget about Hogwarts and remember the disgusting things that I've done."

"I disgust you, don't I?" She chuckled to herself and it seemed as if a small part of her bitter self was trying to escape. "Not because of what I've done but because of who I am."

"Same thing," he breathed.

Hermione shook her head harshly, a lose thread of proper raw emotion breaking through before being tightly sealed away. "No. You had a choice to become who you are today in this War; I never did."

His eyes focused steadily on hers with deadly electricity. "Do you think I had a choice in this? Does it _look_ like had a choice in this? BECAUSE I _DIDN'T_."

Hermione sucked in a deep breath as a pained expression stole her face, a small grin of satisfaction haunting her lips at his confession before she stowed it away, filing it for later use. "I―" She stammered echoing the perfect child.

"You don't trust me," he cut in.

She smiled ruefully. "True."

"Good," he said, softly. "You shouldn't."

She watched him intently with unmasked curious eyes that betrayed their distrust but curious nevertheless. Her shining eyes seemed almost like rich deep amber in the flickering light of the broken lamp that lay trashed on the floor.

"You should let me leave," he spoke, deathly soft like a trickling of fingers on ivory white piano keys.

"Sure," Hermione said noncommittally. "Go ahead."

"Not without my wand," Draco clarified.

She scoffed, eyes rising in tantalising mirth. "Fat chance."

"If you're forcing me to stay, you should dig me a grave too."

"Don't be so melodramatic," Hermione breathed, ignoring his piercingly acute gaze that seemed to slice through her pretence.

He gazed at her in all seriousness, eyes flickering from their natural pale silver with the same consistency as mercury to hard slate. "No, Granger. You should dig me a literal grave. And add four extra for yourselves."

Hermione rolled her eyes, paying no attention to the eerie feeling that was rippling off of him in waves and instead focused on the fact that she could feel her walls cracking already even though the conversation had only lasted a few minutes. She moved hastily to the door before he could detect a change and just as she was shutting it he spoke again.

"The lights are fading, Granger. _My _lights."

She looked back hesitantly at the tall unyielding young man that stood trembling in the room before the door clicked shut once more.

Hermione breathed a deep sigh of relief as she left; the innocent Hermione slipping away as her face crumpled in exertion.

She didn't understand why it was so hard to keep up the emotions when talking to him.

Maybe it was because he was so hot-blooded. He simply _demanded_ a newly made emotion every second and she simply couldn't keep up.

With a huff of breath, Hermione walked back into her room. The only time emotions stole her was when she was fighting and yet the _real_ curiosity seemed to emerge as she spoke to him.

She shook away her niggling anxiousness of him shredding her mask into pieces and replaced with cool calculated information. She was to get the information out of him. And information she would get. She simply _refused_ to be the weakest link.

It was time to give him a show, Hermione thought as she slipped into the stiff mattress, darkness stealing the overpowering bright white light of real raw emotion.

And all the while, Luna was still there in the living room from when she had been herded in earlier in the evening. Nobody noticed her but she noticed them. She noticed Draco – noticed the pale faced man with ivory skin and snowy white hair stained with the rosy lips of blood. And she noticed Hermione – the creamy skin so smooth and flawless that it covered everything behind it.

**AN. And yep, here it is. After nearly 2 months of nipping at the first 10,000 words of this story, I've finally gotten the courage to begin posting. All feedback is appreciated and I would love to know what you think. You probably know what a good review does right? It makes you feel all warm and bubbly inside (:**

**Have a wonderful day!**


	2. Blood

******DISCLAIMER: JK Rowling owns all entities associated with Harry Potter and this fanfiction is in no way making a profit for myself personally.**

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**Chapter 2: Blood**

Draco woke up the next day with gaunt, bloodshot eyes as he studied himself in the cracked mirror of the bathroom that he had managed to find. The throbbing ache in his head had faded to a dull groan and muscles relaxed enough from the soft bed – if you could call a yellow streaked mattress on the floor a bed – to regain basic movement without the use of spasmodic jolts that his limbs conducted.

And now he had to leave. He _needed _to leaveotherwise he and everyone else in this fucking shack were going to end up dead in a matter of days.

His head burnt with the images of the piles of discarded scorched toys, falling apart at the seams, laying abandoned in the gutter of a nameless street and being hauled along with the relentless wind paired with the distressed call of a child covered in the crimson paint of their parents as rain thundered aimlessly on, carrying on without a thought.

But he _couldn't_ leave. How could he leave without his wand? He was just as dead out there as stuck here.

He clawed painfully at his face with raggedly chewed fingernails leaving swollen pink streaks in their path. The knowledge that they were coming while he was sitting around doing nothing was destroying him with the intensity of fire consuming oxygen like a rabid beast.

_They_ were coming for him. With the light of everybody they'd killed in their sparkling, black, empty eyes. _They_ were coming for him – _His _demons. Always hunting, never stopping. They would find him no matter how much he tried to evade them.

And here he was. Remaining in one place like a fucking sitting duck. He was trapped and there was nothing he could do about it because of the stupid fucking Order - his stupid fucking cousin.

Draco returned to his bedroom, making sure to shut the door firmly behind him.

With heavy limbs, he crawled back onto the mattress, letting his mind shut and for his body to become numb, the dreams overtaking him once again.

Because reality was where his demons waited.

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Food came at night, albeit cold food. But food nevertheless.

He hadn't even noticed how hungry he'd been. It was hardly at the top of the list of things to be worrying about.

Tonks carried the tray to the floor beside the mattress in which he was laying on. She gave a pointed look at the mess on the opposite wall, the glimmering glass shards still yet to be cleaned away… because nobody had room to care in the first place.

Draco nodded at the food and moved towards it, self-conscious of the fact that his cousin was still in the room watching him with distrusting and curious eyes.

He waited impatiently for her to leave so that he could eat in solitude, giving her a pointed look.

Tonks rolled her eyes. "Just eat," she said testily.

"Just leave," he retorted.

"I'm your cousin."

"I don't care."

The witch narrowed her eyes. "You're awfully snarky for a hostage."

"Am I a hostage now?" He spoke with a lilting gaze.

"You're valuable."

Draco shook his head ruefully, a crazed grin on his lips. "Dangerous too," he pointed out.

"You don't have a wand; you're no danger to us."

He scoffed. "Wand's only the tip of the iceberg."

"What, Malfoy?" She snapped angrily in impatience. "I'm your_ cousin_. Do you really think that I'm going to hurt you? I _saved_ you when the feral idiot Thomas was about to throw you out into the snow without a wand. You have _no_ right to speak to me like I'm filth – like I don't understand."

He simply stared at her with detached eyes that burned with the ferocity of a lion.

She sighed tiredly, eyes drawn with smudges of blue underneath a gaze that had lost too much but gained so little. "What it is then, Malfoy?" She murmured with fatigue. "Wandless magic? Is that how you brought down the wards? Did You-Know-Who make you powerful as half a dozen witches and wizards?"

Draco raised his eyebrows at the grey faced lady before him. "He didn't make us like this. Our Fathers made us like this – soldiers. He made your Mom a soldier too. I'm nothing more, nothing less."

The vibrant haired witched bit her lip and watched pale pink streaks on his porcelain skin leak with scarlet blood. "I don't care about what you think about yourself, Malfoy. You're dreadfully powerful. Even _I _know that. We can all feel your magic radiating off of you. And you're a death eater. You _are _valuable – whether you want to be or not."

"I'm just the same as any other death eater."

"Any other death eater would've burnt the house down, not just walked into it."

He watched silently at the cousin that was staring at him with a piercing grey gaze, stoic as a soldier.

"Merlin's sake, Malfoy. Just give me _something_. What do you want?"

"I want to leave."

She scoffed. "We all want to leave. We all want to run away."

"You can."

"No, I can't. Look, just tell me one thing," she paused, hesitating, afraid to elicit a negative response from the violent young man. "_How_ are you dangerous exactly?"

Draco raised an eyebrow with an obscure gaze. "Be more specific."

Tonks sighed in frustration at the lack of response while at the same time, clinging to the last shreds of decency that this boy had left. "How are you dangerous? Is it because you're powerful? Is You-Know-Who training the death eaters? Is he casting magic enhancing spells on you? Just tell me _something_."

His eyes focused steadily on hers with locks of long hair hanging above his brows. "Yes, he's slipping us magic enhancing potions in our daily cupcakes."

Tonks narrowed her eyes in dire aggravation. "Look. I give up! What is _wrong with you_? It's like―"

"What is wrong with _me?_ You mean what is wrong with _you_," he snapped angrily. "Why can't you just leave me fucking alone? What do you want from me? Information? Fine, I'll answer your questions. Yes, I am powerful. So what? I already told you. It wasn't _my_ choice. I _wish_ was pathetic like Weasley. At least then, nobody would notice me. I would just be another snivelling Death Eater. But I'm _not_. People _notice _me. And I fucking _hate it_. I don't _want_ to be fucking noticed. If _only_ I could just disappear and have nobody notice. I don't _want_ this. Imagine not even being able to do a single fucking _thing_ without someone noticing. Imagine making _one_ fucking mistake and _everybody_ knowing. Because guess what, that's what happened." He sucked in a deep breath of gratifying air that burnt in his coarse windpipe. "And _no_, the Dark Lord is _not_ training death eaters. He's training _beasts_. We're not even human, anymore."

The witch paused and sighed. "Draco. Why are you here? What happened?"

"_Nothing_," he bit.

"You said―"

"Fuck off."

"I―"

His eyes suddenly glinted with the palest of silver, as sharp as a blade. "I said _fuck off_. Send in Granger if you want to annoy me."

"You're awfully snarky for a hostage."

"Repeating old lines now are you?" His tongue moved in perfect verbal inflections, like a snake with the silkiest of scales and the deadliest of bites.

"Why don't you just leave then? Surely you don't need a wand due to your superior skill with magic," she taunted.

Draco glared in turn, lips pursed. "You know I can't."

Tonks breathed in a sigh and turned away from the cousin that seemed so far from what she was. She did know. It didn't matter if he could wield magic without a wand. It was still pathetic in comparison to a wand. He was one of the most feared characters according to most and would be killed on sight alone. He wouldn't stand a chance.

The silence penetrated through their pores, leaking into their bloodstream – shared blood, shared responsibility yet still poles apart.

Eventually, the purple haired witch gave up and acknowledged the fact that she wasn't going to get anything else out of the unyielding blond, leaving Draco to eat and sulk in nervous anticipation, trapped the dilapidated cell of inferiority – he was _nothing _without a wand, no better than a muggle.

.

* * *

.

And so began the routine.

Every night, food would come and so would they. Sometimes it was just one and sometimes in pairs.

They continued pestering him for knowledge with each passing day and Draco remained resolutely silent.

Despite their evident hatred and irritation of him, they tiptoed around the blonde as if he were a crazed maniac. All except for Granger at least.

She would try coaxing answers out of him before soon losing her temper in the most smooth fashion and storming out of the bedroom in which they'd begun to call '_the asylum'_.

"Has it fucking occurred to you, Granger that I _didn't _mean any ill intent? That I just stumbled upon you by chance?" Draco said, hotly.

"You're a death eater. Why would I believe you?" She argued, suspicious.

"Then why are you trying to get information out of me when you don't believe a word I say?"

She opened and closed her mouth in surprise, words failing at her faulted logic. "Shut it, Malfoy," she hissed before stalking out of his room.

.

* * *

.

She would always sigh in relief each time the door clicked shut behind her as she headed to her room, physically exhausted from keeping up with his onslaught of emotion.

She'd file away each conversation they'd had for use on another day and she couldn't help but feel true curiosity burn after each and every word he'd speak.

.

* * *

.

He would always sigh in relief at the sound of the door clicking shut.

And after each long night, Draco would tumble into a fit of restless sleep, listening to the clock at the corner of his room counting down the remaining time left. Emotions were inconvenient and weak, yet the quiet dread seemed to seep into his very pores as time slipped away through his fingers. Until the time his demons would finally catch up.

.

* * *

.

Hermione sucked in a deep breath and staggered to the kitchen, pouring herself a glass of water. The door to the asylum was decisively closed and she was beginning to panic. It'd only been a few days. A few days and his gaze alone seemed to be breaking apart her barriers. She knew she was imagining it but she would feel positively _drained_ after each and every encounter.

He didn't even look like he was trying.

His moods would just swing so suddenly and Hermione did her best to keep up, recalculating and evaluating in a fraction of a second – so fast it became painful.

She didn't know if she could last much longer at the rate things were going.

She'd learnt _absolutely _fucking nothing except for the fact that he would easily escalate into anger.

But what was anger in the face of a maniac?

.

* * *

.

A few days later came the first attack.

He knew it had been coming. He had even frightened himself into believing that he was already dead and in a constant loop of events created by the demons to haunt him. It was as if the dread that had silently festered with ruthless indignation, feverish with each passing day had finally burst.

His entire body seemed to shake as the far too familiar sounds of a fight travelled to him lying abandoned on his mattress.

The clatter of footsteps, the sizzling sound of spells whizzing through air with deadly accuracy, the painful awareness that his death was waiting for him right outside the door slashed through his mind like a knife.

This wasn't unfamiliar territory but the familiarity of all of it showed him what would soon occur.

"Give him his wand!" A distressed voice sliced through the crashes of battle outside his door.

"We can't, Tonks. He's going to turn on us and go trotting off back to You-Know-Who."

"I _said_, give him his _wand_," Tonks hissed as the door opened with a delightfully tender sharp creak of wood flying off its hinges.

Draco raised his eyebrows in recognition at the ruffled figure of his relative standing before him.

"The Death Eaters are probably here to fetch their little baby," Dean hissed malevolently, walking in behind her.

The blonde chuckled calmly despite the overpowering urge to flee, anxiety begin to claw like a rabid beast into his mind. "Death Eaters have no sense of protecting their own kind. They're not fetching me…" He trailed off. "Well they are. But not in a way that's particularly pleasing."

"What are you talking about, Malfoy?" Tonks paused, stepping forwards towards him, hair already soaked in sweat and the blood from a gash on her head.

However, before she could cross the distance between them in rush movements, an unearthly bloodcurdling wail travelled from the room adjacent to his followed by a sharp crack of flying debris hammering against the wall.

"He needs to be able to defend himself!" She said urgently to Dean. "Give him his wand!"

The Gryffindor staggered as the ground shook beneath their very feet.

Draco tried to suppress the anxiety that was welling up within him. He needed to get out of here. He was going to die tonight.

"_THOMAS!" _She shouted, clinging onto the doorframe to keep her balance. "That was Hermione's scream just then. _Luna_ is out there too. Just give him his bloody wand."

"He's going to escape!" He exclaimed.

"_He_ is my cousin and _he_ needs to be able to defend himself."

The young wizard froze for a second before reluctantly muttering an incantation underneath his breath.

_Stupid fucking bastard was still uninjured,_ Draco thought to himself as he observed the seemingly neat and tidy set of clothes that the Gryffindor was wearing.

However his train of thought immediately disappeared as he felt the hum of magic in the air and with a blindingly painful suck of air from the room, Draco's wand materialised, hovering for a moment before clattering onto the weak floorboards.

His breath caught in his throat at the sight of his wand. His protection. It was odd that an inanimate object could be of so much worth. How odd it was that this wand to Draco, signified time. It was inevitable; his death. But this wand gave him time.

With shaking limbs he picked himself off of the dirty mattress and reached for his wand, resting it between two pale aristocratic fingers.

He felt power surge through him once again.

He was no longer indistinguishable from a muggle. He was a wizard.

"Fight," the soft voice of Nymphadora Tonks murmured. "Them or us."

Draco stood, lips pursed, the wand still resting loosely in his hand, throbbing with unused magic that tempted him like a little child. "I've given no reason for you to trust me."

She nodded solemnly. "I know."

"You trust too much. You should stop," he said steadily.

She simply looked at him with the scarlet blood marring her features – the blood they shared.

And with a swift sidestep, the slow unrushed words were called to a halt as panic seized him and in turn, franticly furious, disconnected movements of limbs began to move in spasmodic jolts. He stalked swiftly out from underneath the collapsing doorframe and out into the chaos of the narrow corridor, power radiating off of him in waves as he flexed his fingers, reacquainting them with the old familiarity of his wand.

With sharp and rapidly paced strides, he pursued the glimmer of light in the living room, ignoring a piercing cry from his left behind a closed door, senses on high alert for any shift in air.

He needed to get out.

They were too close.

They were _here_.

They'd caught up … finally.

With an unsteady hand, he pushed open the frame of the shattered glass door and stepped into the living room lit with a pale dim glow of the stolen sun creeping away to give way to night. It was empty. It was vast, decaying and empty, silent except for the screams that probably didn't make it silent.

There was no use.

There was no fucking _use_. He _couldn't _escape death's grasp because he was already in it. He just had to keep running and hope that time gave him wisdom.

Apparating was useless – he'd tried. The wards prevented it … obviously.

Draco's eyes focused on the room and immediately found the front door in which he had passed through the first time that seemed so long ago now.

He didn't encounter a single Order member on his way… thankfully. He wouldn't know what to do if he did.

_I need to leave_, he thought as blinding anxiousness stole his breath away in a vice-like grip.

A scuffle of movement from behind him registered in his ears however he refused to turn back and instead, his unsteady gaze focused on the exit. He could feel the panic and anxiety begin to swallow him; the sheer knowledge that his demons had found him.

The air was teaming with the sound of disaster and pain, thickened by stealthy silence of those who waited.

He had no idea how many there were. He had no idea what chance he had of getting out. But he _had_ to leave and run. Run. Run for the rest of his life. Forever running away and never stopping. Forever running away from his demons that stalked him like predator did prey. Because what else was there to do? Wait and die? Wait for death? Wait for the constant figure of darkness that loomed forebodingly with the disaster it brought? Wait for the constant figure of darkness that seemed so constant it was familiar and so familiar it was comforting?

Draco's scuffed shoes crunched on broken glass and weak floorboards, tattered with drops of dried and fresh blood.

They were after him. The Order just seemed to get in the way. And now, it was time for him to run.

He had his wand now. He could run and never look back. He could and he _would_.

The pressure of trembling panic coursed through him as his hand enclosed around the rusted bronze doorknob, wand gripped tightly in his hand, waiting for the inevitable attack.

And it came far sooner than he would've liked.

"_Malfoy_," a deliciously snake-like voice hissed with painful clarity. "You knew we'd find you."

His quivering hand slid off of the door. He had to face them. He had to face the taunting, menacing figures that had wrecked fear on all the Death Eaters who thought traitorous thoughts. With the bravery of a Gryffindor, he gasped a hiss of a snake and turned to face the living embodiment of his demons.

"_Malfoy_," the death eater snarled once again and with a flick of his wand that seemed so fast it cut like a whip through air, Draco was thrown off of his feet and raised high into the air, upside down like a ragged doll.

_Yep,_ _maybe bravery wasn't a good thing_, he thought as the blood immediately rushed to his pale face, deeming it fit to turn rosy red as his clammy hands slipped on his wand.

With another crack of harsh magic, he was back on the floor, feet thudding as he staggered, his ankle snapping painfully at the sharp angle of landing.

Despite the pain, he raised his wand in all desperate savagery, miraculously aimed at target. "Avada―"

A sudden impact knocked him over breathless and Draco hissed at his betraying weak body. His nose flared at the detesting body that was pinning him down.

"Get off of me," he snapped, pushing away the large, sickly bony body. "You _repulse _me."

"You're not one to talk – _Sordid_, _loathsome, foul traitor_." The words pierced like blades of ice at the snowy haired wizard's mind.

The hunter stood up languidly and with an easy flick of a wand, Draco's wand was out of his hands and his limbs sagged before being lifted and hanging in the air like a marionette.

"Time to die, traitor. The bloody Order won't be able to protect you from us."

He protested with resolute stormy grey eyes, his lips clamped shut in pride, cursing his traitorous body as his limbs were a weapon against himself, eyes focused on his newly reacquainted wand that lay a few feet away from him.

"We're your demons," the blood thirsty mouth slithered, hungry for more. "Nobody can protect you from us."

Draco grunted with force as a table lifted from the corner of his eye and he forced the pure pressure behind his eyes on the large, clumsy pile of wood, propelling it to his assailant in a panic induced roar of power.

Without a glance, the table that had stolen all his energy was kicked aside and he nearly collapsed onto the floor from exhaustion if it had not been for his marionette-like state.

The sinister wand was raised and Draco closed his glassy eyes, thick with turbulent, illustrious life. Fuck this ending was too fast. But the hunters weren't those who wasted their time playing with their food.

_That was something to be grateful about, I guess,_ he thought, picturing the flow of magic within his body as that would be the last he'd ever feel it. He sucked in a deep breath of precious air, readying himself for the flash of green light that was going to be the last thing he would ever see. Time had caught up with him – only too soon.

His escalating heartbeat stammered to a halt as he felt light flash behind his lids.

**AN. Okay, well this is just a little bit late. In my defence, I was busy with school. However, it is the holidays now so I have now thus written chapter 3 and halfway through chapter 4.**

**Now this chapter is fairly crap in my opinion, sorry. Like, I personally think I'm terrible at anything action which is ironic seeing as this story is set during the second Wizarding War so advice would be very much appreciated.**


	3. Helplessness

******DISCLAIMER: JK Rowling owns all entities associated with Harry Potter and this fanfiction is in no way making a profit for myself personally.**

******.**

* * *

**.**

**Chapter 3: Helplessness**

_His escalating heartbeat stammered to a halt as he felt light flash behind his lids._

A breath passed and Draco could still feel the searing pain of his ankle.

Another breath passed and he was released from his marionette-like state to return, sprawling to the floor.

Another breath passed and he opened his eyes wearily.

A breathless brunette with wild locks sprawled down her chest was watching him with steely eyes, his wand outstretched on her palm in offering.

He breathed loudly through his parched mouth as he saw a black hooded form lying on the floor, realisation taking a moment to hit him.

"Nice magic," she said, frowning. "Why didn't you use that on us when you didn't have your wand?"

He reached out for the wand, power surging through him as he greedy sucked in the magic before straightening his back. "You should've let him kill me," he said deadly soft, ignoring the fact that he was still in death's grasp.

Hermione raised an eyebrow testily. "Really?"

Draco noted the stuttered way she was breathing as if something was inhibiting her lungs and how her left arm was hanging loosely by her side at an odd angle, resting on the same crumpled white shirt she'd worn on the first day. "Yes, really," he replied steadily.

Her heart stammered at the way his body seemed to slump, as if the emotion were battling with the fabric of his mind. "And would you like to tell me why, Malfoy?"

He observed her with dark and hooded eyes, gaunt with fatigue, and bright with madness. "Because I'd much rather him kill me than for you to kill him. You don't seem the type to have blood on your hands. You can't wash away red from white – never completely at least."

Hermione's eyes widened infinitesimally for a fraction of a second in true shock. "I―" She stuttered, her calculated emotions failing her.

His gaze focused on her with the raw intensity of lightning.

She shook her head roughly as if shaking his penetrating gaze away before groaning at the pressure she'd put on her windpipe. "I didn't kill him, idiot. It was just a stunning spell."

Draco opened his mouth in surprise before folding into a deranged smirk. "Good."

She narrowed her eyes inscrutably. "Good," she echoed softly as if surprised with herself.

He picked himself off of the floor with shaking limbs as he attempted to suppress the growing anxiety of awaiting death once again. "Good. And I'm going to leave before I become the reason you stain your white with scarlet."

Draco's pale hand, ribboned with red blood enclosed around the rusted doorknob once more – one last time.

However, before he could push open the waterlogged piece of wood, a stiff cold hand that sparked with electricity wrapped tightly around his right wrist. Their wands clashed together briefly before she turned him around with one arm, the other still hanging uselessly at her side.

Hermione bit her lip anxiously, letting her defenses collapse for a moment before she drew them back up once again. She needed him to stay. She'd worked too hard already. She _needed_ for it to pay off.

"Don't you dare leave. Don't give me a reason to regret saving you," she hissed with practiced venom.

His eyes widened marginally before settling down again. "You didn't need to save me."

She narrowed her eyes. "Well I did."

"You should be grateful that I'm leaving," he said hurriedly, foot tapping irrationally and sporadically as his panic and anxiety continued to well within him.

"Shut it, Malfoy. You went to school with us. What changed? I'm just your peer and you're just the boy I went to school with. How could I let that boy die?" It was as if she was reasoning with herself far more than she was reasoning with him.

"Everything changed, Granger," Draco growled, hand moving back to the brass doorknob.

"Wait!" Hermione called out loudly in panic, her alarm true as day, marring her features. She _needed _for him to stay. She worked too hard. She wasted endless energy on him and that energy _needed_ to be paid off.

He whipped around swiftly with wide eyes, ignoring the evident way in which she shifted from perfected, seamless portrayals of emotion to raw, ragged ones that screamed with her pain. "Shhh!" He hushed furiously. "They'll hear."

"Don't leave. Not yet. We―we―we need information," she stuttered in a whisper, forcing herself back into her natural calculated state.

"Believe me, Granger, it's not worth it," he hissed darkly.

Her eyes flashed in indignation. "And shouldn't I be the judge of that?"

"Not when you don't have all the facts."

"Then give me all the facts," she challenged.

"I need to leave," he said testily.

Hermione raised an eyebrow. "Do you want to leave?"

"Yes!" He exclaimed.

She chuckled quietly to herself. "And I'm not letting you."

An ear-splitting scream shot through the room like wildfire followed by clashes of china.

"I'm dangerous. I'm not worth it," Draco said calmly.

"You're not dangerous."

He nearly choked at her words. "Do you want a taste?"

Hermione scoffed. "Malfoy, you're not dangerous. You're holding a wand for god's sake."

"Exactly."

"_Exactly_. And you still haven't given any indication of harming me yet. Why haven't you just simply killed the stupid mudblood? Why is that Malfoy?"

"I―" His words were lost in his throat for a split second. "I need to leave," he coughed once again.

"Why?"

"Because of _them_," he jerked his head to the corridor where grunts and thinly veiled harsh breaths could be heard.

"_Why?_" She cried. "You're one of them, they're not going to hurt you."

He nearly punched her in frustration. "_Can't you see, Granger? _Are you fucking _blind?_ Did you not see one of them trying to fucking kill me a moment ago? I'm _not_ one of them anymore!"

"Oh―" She breathed a strangled gasp through a choking oesophagus. _Oh, _she thought in breathless surprise. _Oh._ Well that was information.

"Exactly," he spat.

All of a sudden, a rumble of feet startled them from their whispered conversation at the dilapidated door as Tonks came barging into the room with her wand raised followed by a bruised Dean carrying an unconscious Luna.

"Let's go, go, go!" She shouted, gesturing madly.

A crackle of electricity entered the room as a bright light scorched through the timid air, missing the caregiver by an inch before hitting the mirror above the mantle in splintering waves of reflective glass shards.

Two black cloaked figures entered the room, one after another, like prowling shadows with their lithe bodies and the bared teeth of ravenous wolves. The two of them easily sidestepped the fallen body of their comrade ruthlessly.

"Right," she said, shoulders slumping. "Apparently not yet."

With wands raised, the four still conscious huddled together, backs against one another as their wands aimed wildly at the skulking creatures that circled the room like cheetahs. Yet none dared to attack in case the carefully constructed moment of unearthly peace with the demons was shattered. They were entranced – entranced by the lithe figures that danced around them, silent except for the crunch of boots on glass.

An eerie coarse laugh that sung like a smooth lullaby pierced the air in perfect equilibrium.

"Idiots," one of the pair laughed a coarse hacking laugh.

"_Apes_," the other responded.

The black cloaked figures with crimson red masks the colour of blood stalked them, wands drawn with sickly yellow hands.

"We are _not_ idiots," a clear voice spoke in trembling tenacity and he turned his head to meet a mane of curly brown hair. "There are only 2 of you."

Draco rolled his eyes at her.

It was two hungry, thirsty death eaters especially trained and _designed_ to take down traitors. One easily kicked away their stunned comrade from earlier like a child discarding an outgrown toy. They were vicious beasts, working with cruel efficiency, designed to work in packs. A single hunter like a lone wolf was harmless but put two together and it was the most efficient and unequivocal method for unadulterated brutality.

"_Idiots_," the death eater spoke again, voice a hollow baritone.

Draco was going to die now.

Fantastic.

At least there was one thing he was good at – messing up his fucking life.

A hand slithered between his body and his hand to tightly grasp it. Draco had to resist the urge to jerk back in surprise at the contact and let the overpowering surge of panic sweep him off his feet.

Draco looked down at the hand clasped in his and looked back up at the brave, stony face of his cousin.

"It's okay. We're not going to fucking die tonight," she murmured softly against his ear, barely audible against the howling wind that sent chills up one's spine.

"Look at that, the traitor with his traitor family. Poetic justice isn't it?" A disgusting man slithered like a snake, grinning at the clasped hands of a family.

"Poetic justice your arse," Tonks hissed.

"And now it's time for the little traitor boy to die. What a shame―"

"And now it's time for _you_ to _stop messing with my family," _she interrupted, wand whipping up so fast that an audible crack could be heard as concentration stealing her face paired with a sharp clenching at his hand, her knuckles turning white from the pressure. Sheer white light stole the room, searing through the air with a roar, wand sizzling at the strength of the spell. The cloaks fell off of the creatures of bloodlust to reveal the darkness of man as they staggered in no particular direction in an enchanted daze.

He could feel the pure power radiating in the room from the sheer magnitude of the spell to render the hunter's meticulously placed shields useless.

"THEIR SHIELDS ARE TOO STRONG. YOU HAVE ONE MINUTE BEFORE THE SPELL WEARS OFF," the heaving witch yelled from the sudden loss of energy. "GRAB YOUR EMERGENCY BAGS AND APPARATE TO EMERGENCY LOCATION TWO."

Dragged along through the array of frenzied movement, he pulled away and found himself in the kitchen.

With fumbling fingers that had long ago lost feeling from the onslaught of panic ridden dread, he reached out for the first thing he could find, pushing in a blur of items into a small never-ending beaded bag that was left abandoned on the kitchen countertop. Anxious desire seized him like a hurricane.

Great, now what was he supposed to do. It was just_ typical_ of them to place anti-apparation charms in the wards for everyone except for them. Stupid bloody Order complex. It was quite clever actually … except in this case. How the fuck was he meant to get out?

However before he could turn around and begin to panic on what the possibility of survival was if he did a mad sprint out until he reached the edge of the wards, a sudden very warm hand grabbed his wrist and Draco flinched at the spark of human contact.

The hand twisted around him abruptly and he found himself being sucked into a vortex of breathlessness before he could even register his unfolding alarm.

"Fuck!" He gasped as his feet found ground, body convulsing on the floor, looking up. "Some warning next time?" He hissed.

Hermione raised her eyebrows. "Can't have you getting away can I?"

Draco lifted his head to find her very much real before him. "Granger," he said softly.

"Yes. _Malfoy_."

"Why am I here?" He murmured.

"What?" She said, puzzled.

He shook his head abruptly, clearing away the devices of manipulation that would control his life. No, he would _not_ let emotions control his life – never fucking ever. "Why did you bring me here?"

She frowned. "You were being attacked."

He scoffed. "Don't butter me up with your sacrilegious Gryffindor bullshit. I know it's not true. Tell me _why_."

"You were being attacked," she repeated.

"No, I was having a tea party. Quit fucking stating the obvious."

She merely looked at him, her wand twirling languidly between her fingers.

"Why did you decide to personally make sure that I was safe? You have absolutely no reason to."

"I don't understand―"

"I _disgust_ you. I'm a filthy, vile, traitorous _monster_. Why am I here? Why are you letting me be here? Surely information isn't worth the safety of your comrades? And I thought Gryffindors weren't selfish."

Hermione glared. "I am _not_ selfish."

He scoffed loudly despite the cold, hard, swirling terror that gripped him uncontrollably at unsystematic intervals like the way guilt creeps up on one whenever they're alone. "Don't try to pretend like this _information_ isn't just for you. Even you know that it's just to fill the pathetic void of helplessness that you get when you're in a fucking _War_."

"This _information_ could be the difference between winning and losing in the War," she snapped.

"I'M NOT GIVING YOU ANYTHING."

Hermione breathed in heavily between flared nostrils, angered by his ignorance. "WHY? YOU'RE NOT ONE OF THEM ANYMORE."

"THAT DOESN'T MEAN I'M ONE OF YOU EITHER."

"Yes it does! There are only 2 sides, Malfoy. If you're not on our side, you're a liability and we can't let you out of our sight."

"Is this what War made you become? A fucking machine? What about the innocents? Are they a _liability_ too?"

She remained stony cold, emotions in check once again, stowing them calmly away before raising back masked ones. She wasn't good enough at this yet. She needed to get better. "I've had to adapt to changes otherwise I'd die."

"What's the point? NO ONE WILL WIN!" He exclaimed. "Nobody's going to fucking win this stupid War. Maybe a side will win; for now. But there will always be supporters of the other side. Imagine if you lost, Granger. Imagine, just for one moment. What would you do? Would you just succumb to their beliefs and morals? Would you just stop believing what was right simply because they 'won'?"

"I would be killed first," she said softly, refusing to let him get to her. She liked the way things were. They could be better, _far_ better but it could be _far_ worse. At least during War everybody was too busy to notice her fragilely constructed counterfeit emotions.

He sighed in aggravation. "Yes, I know you would. I'm sorry, I can't change that fact but if it's any consolation, I'd be killed too." Draco sucked in a deep breath. "But you're missing the point, Granger. What am I of any use? You could get the same information out of any other death eater. I'm just dead weight to you. I'm fucking insignificant, irrelevant and of no importance; I wouldn't make a single difference. I'm not even important enough to be a _liability_."

"You have no idea how important you are, Malfoy," she spoke, stepping forwards with brightly dark, glittering amber eyes rimmed with the shadow of fatigue.

"Just tell me why you're making sure that I'm safe," he asked desperately, once more, hand raking through his snowy blonde hair.

Hermione shook her head and he marveled the way her hair fell.

_Because I have nothing else to do_.

No, she refused to tell him that throughout this entire fucking War so far, she'd been treated as a petulant child. Draco Malfoy was right though. She was Harry Potter's best friend. That was all that she was and that was all she'd ever be. She had nothing of use to do. She was _helpless_ and _insignificant. _And she needed _something_ – something to hold on to. She'd turn absolutely crazy if she didn't.

_Play him_, she thought to herself. Play him and he would be curious. Keep him curious, and he would have to stay. And he staying meant something for her to strive for. So she mustered up the last dregs of tempered emotion to a dejected sigh. "You'd think I was crazy."

He watched with her with new eyes. "I already think you're crazy."

Hermione bit her lip cautiously, rejecting the surprise that his response evoked and instead she chuckled softly to herself._ Keep him curious, curious, curious_. "I think I am too. Maybe that's what the War is doing to us – making us lose our minds. Sometimes I think that if we just win, everything will suddenly be okay. But it's not is it? It'll never be." She sucked in a coarse gasp of air that sounded like a weeping air current and spoke words true as day. "Sometimes I don't even know who I am anymore."

"Just tell―"

"HERMIONE!" A voice exclaimed and Draco finally opened his peripheral vision to take in his surroundings, tearing his gaze away from the witch with taunting brown eyes and dark, rich hair that fell in messy tendrils down her shoulders.

"Oh good, we're all here," Tonks gasped, hurrying towards the witch. "Come on! We need to set up the wards."

Hermione nodded and followed the vivid-haired witch, eyes meeting his for a brief stolen moment. "Get inside, Malfoy," she murmured.

Draco rolled his eyes at her retreating figure and examined the shack of a living arrangement. His hands were numb as flakes of snow billowed in vast arrays of brilliant white curtains around him followed with handfuls of steamy staccato breaths from his lips.

The building was a mouldy piece of wood with windows smashed in and the door hanging ajar as the shriveled thing stood proudly at the top of a hill. With a heaving breath, he climbed the last few steps and found himself slipping in through the door into the one room in which the place contained.

He moved to a dripping tap and dumped the small beaded bag on the counter watching the drop of water bead at the tip of the rusted metal, expanding like a growing sunflower before following gravity's plans and falling, suspended in air for a moment as a fleeting sparkle light was reflected on the drop for the smallest of seconds.

"Why do you have my bag?"

Draco jumped around and swore underneath his breath. "Fucking hell, don't do that. _Ever_."

"Why do you have my bag?" She gestured to the beaded bag.

He watched her cautiously. "I thought you were putting up wards," he said warily.

"Done. Dean and Tonks are just bringing Luna around now. Why do you have my bag?"

"Done, already?"

"Yes, done already. Why do you have my bag?"

"It takes ages to place up advanced wards. Are you sure you―"

"Yes, I'm fucking sure, Malfoy," she snapped. "We've been doing this for years; it's the same pattern of spells. Why do you have my bag?"

His mouth turned into a hard line. "I liked the pattern."

"Funny, Malfoy," she bit back and easily slipped past his tall frame to the counter, digging through the beaded bag. Frowning, she turned back to the tall white blonde with a penetrating gaze. "Why did you bring food?"

He shrugged. "Nymphadora said bring your emergency bag."

"Why did you bring the food instead of your emergency bag?"

Draco rolled his eyes in exasperation. "Because you need food."

"We can get it," she replied stubbornly.

He sighed loudly and Hermione watched mesmerised as his bright grey eyes melted away, feathery long lashes dusted with gold fluttering shut before beaming back open. "According to Gamp's Law of Elemental Transformation, food cannot be produced by magic. And I didn't think you were particularly keen on going out to the market."

She opened her mouth agape, arms still crossed firmly over her chest. "Why did you bring the food instead of your emergency bag?"

"You're a bloody lunatic, Granger. I don't _have_ an emergency bag."

"You should," she replied.

Draco shrugged. "I don't have anything I need other than my wand."

"What about your clothes? It's the middle of winter and all you have is …" She looked at him up and down, ignoring the way the snow had melted and had plastered his clothing onto his lean body. "…A sweater."

He shook the ice blonde fringe from his eyes. "When I stumbled upon your little gathering, did it look like I had anything else? I'll be fine."

She took a step forwards, noticing the way his body seemed to radiate with warmth despite the cold. "You won't be fine here," she said gesturing wildly to the dilapidated building with very little cover. "This place has got nothing but running water."

"Does it look like I care? I'll be leaving soon either way."

"Why don't you leave now?"

"Because you fucking brought me here and I have no idea where the _hell_ I am."

"Why didn't you just apparate out the minute Tonks broke through the death eater's shields?"

He sucked in a deep breath at the infuriating witch. "Because I've _tried_. _I _can't apparate out. Apparently only you Order members can."

Hermione grinned in satisfaction. "I was the one who thought of that. Can't have you getting away can we?"

"Fuck off."

She narrowed her eyes at him before tilting her chin thoughtfully to the side. "Although … weren't the wards already down when the death eaters came in?"

Draco scoffed. "Yeah they took down the wards … and brought them back up again, so that _I _couldn't leave."

"Oh," she spoke softly, body too wrung with injuries to bother with conjuring calculated emotions. "Malfoy, why are you―"

"Look, Granger," he interrupted breathing heavily through his nostrils, taking a step forwards until he was right before her, hair hanging off of his head, looking down upon her with threateningly stormy eyes. "Just stop meddling with me alright? You're not going to get any _information_ from me."

"_Why_?"

"Are you fucking kidding me? We've gone through this. I am _not_ on your side. I'm not giving you _anything_. I don't care what your question is. I'm not answering it."

She sucked in a deep breath, opening her mouth to reply however before she could utter a single word, he interrupted her once more.

"I don't need your help so you're not getting any of mine. I can take care of myself," he hissed.

Hermione glared at him indignantly. "I wasn't saying that you couldn't."

He glowered at the beaded bag on the cracked marble counter. "Be fucking grateful I got the food." And with a huff, he walked out the door, muttering underneath his breath crude words of frustration. He had no idea where he was and no idea how far the wards spanned out. How the _fuck_ was he meant to get out?

**AN. Okay not much to say really. I hope you enjoyed this chapter and I really do like writing dialogue so this chapter made me happy to write (: I'm sending chapter 4 to my beta soon but the sad thing is that school's started again so I have not since started chapter 5. Wish me luck though!**


	4. Notice

**********DISCLAIMER: JK Rowling owns all entities associated with Harry Potter and this fanfiction is in no way making a profit for myself personally.**

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**Chapter 4: Notice**

Draco collapsed on the soft patch of floor that was to be his bed, hands numb from the evening air that stabbed his uncovered skin like knives until all that was left was the faint tingling of illustrious oblivion.

Arms wrapped tightly around his body, his pulse thrummed wildly at wrist as he waited for the short gasps of air that blew from his blood red lips to shorten. He'd walked for hours until darkness stole the Earth completely and the stars shone as bright as the sun yet the light never reached the ground. He _waited_ for the sound of magic as he crossed the wards but it never came. He had no fucking idea how far the wards spanned. He had no fucking idea how to take _down _the wards. He had no fucking idea _where_ he was.

Draco unfolded his legs, ignoring the kink in his ankle after hastily healing it and stood up, manoeuvring his way through the dark expanses of Order figures that had crawled up on the soft floorboards and begged sleep to come.

He carefully slipped out of the backdoor that refused to close and into the velvety coat of shadows that was night. Tenderly sitting down on a cold, hard brick step, his eyes searched the vastness of the land before him. A tiny billow of flume spiralled up into the air and Draco breathed in the smell of fresh grass. He rested his head on his hands as his shoulders slumped, giving in to the fatigue that overwhelmed his body.

.

* * *

.

"Malfoy."

His entire body lunged up in a moment of panic-stricken mess of adrenaline filled movements. Body taut and ready with his wand raised, he was the pinnacle of soldier perfection.

Draco blew out his deep breath of air, disturbing the stray locks of hair that had fallen onto the bridge of his nose. Pocketing his wand, he swept his hair to the side, away from his eyes and surveyed her.

"What are you doing here?" He snapped, impatiently.

She was wrapped up tightly in a large coat, arm in a sling and on her throat, in the gaps where her hair didn't cover were dark purple and blue splotches of bruised creamy skin.

Hermione shrugged. "Saw you coming out."

"I was finding the softest bit of floor rather hard to sleep on."

She breathed evenly through her nose, ignoring the aching feeling in her stomach to push harder at constructed emotions to elicit a reaction from him to relieve the building anxiety that he would just _leave_ without any information. _Just relax_, she told herself. _Relax_, _he's not going to leave._

It was time to do what she came to do – give him a show.

"Were those Death Eaters after you?"

Draco rolled his eyes, exposing the delicate film over his eyes to the frosty air. "I already told you – yes."

"Why?"

He inhaled a deep breath of harsh, cold air. "If I tell you, will you stop trying to interfere?"

"No."

He raised an eyebrow at her.

"I'm not going to pretend to be your friend, Malfoy. But it's not like I've got anyone to tell."

He chuckled hollowly to himself. "It was a heroic tale."

Hermione grinned softly, playing along. "Only fitting for a Malfoy."

"Look, I'm going to give you this, Granger. But only because you're not going to get anything else," he exhaled loudly.

She sat down beside him on the hard brick steps, holding her breath in anticipation.

"There's not much to tell, really," he breathed. "Just your ordinary story for your ordinary death eater."

Hermione laughed. "I _wish_ you were ordinary."

"I _am_," he hissed. "Look. I just―" He paused, collecting his thoughts. "―I screwed up. That was it. And it was noticed. It's _always_ noticed."

"How?" She prodded.

Frowning at her perfect semblance of curiosity, Draco ran a hand through his hair before shaking it roughly, pushing away the thoughts. It was probably nothing. She was perfect Hermione Granger. Why not have perfect emotions too? They were perfect, clean cut and neat for perfect, clean cut and neat Hermione – _too fucking neat_.

"Malfoy?" She interrupted, her clear voice slicing through his thoughts.

He shook his head once again like an animal shaking away the flies that surrounded it. "You want to know something Granger? I was weak. No, I _am _weak. And I was an idiot – a complete fucking idiot. Thought nobody would notice. Just one tiny fucking flaw. It was tiny. One miniscule detail. Fucking hell. Years of mind-numbing torture and duties meant to rip out every single fibre of moral out of you and it was still there. Do you know what it was?"

She leaned instinctively towards the dangerous beast that he was as her heart pounded steadily in her ears with the roar of a lion, paying no attention to how far she strayed from her carefully constructed barrier of emotions.

He laughed at himself. It was a cold, hard laugh, sharp enough to break steel. "_Empathy_. Fuck. And apparently soldiers aren't meant to have empathy. One moment of panic induced insanity and it was fucking _noticed_." He sucked in a deep breath of chilling oxygen that cleared his mind.

His eyes flickered to her amber ones, giving her a hard gaze as she pulled back to her protective barrier, hiding behind clean, neat sensations like an animal retreating back to safety.

"Fuck," he whispered.

Hermione frowned. "What?"

"FUCK," he roared into the empty horizon and she jumped. "WHAT AM I DOING?"

"You're not doing anything!" She exclaimed, alarmed.

"I must be _mad_," he spoke in a raggedly clear voice. "_Why_ the _fuck_ am I telling you this? Why the _fuck _am I even here?"

_Okay, so being kind wasn't going to work,_ she thought rationally, filing it away. "I― I―" She stammered in the most innocent manner she could retrieve.

His hands shook in front of him, the image blurring before his eyes. "You play filthy games, Granger."

She furrowed her brows in confusion. "I'm _sorry_?"

"You're playing a filthy game and it's a dangerous one."

"What the _hell _are you implying," she said hotly, abandoning innocence in a split second. _Empathy, maybe, but definitely not towards her._

"LOOK," he shouted, turning around in his seat to face her, eye to eye, shoulders slightly hunched. "Just _look at me_. Pathetic fucking Malfoy. You _trapped_ me here."

"You _came_ to us," Hermione pointed out.

He groaned in aggravation, his hot breath dusting her face as she breathed in sharply, pushing away her carefully cultivated artificial emotions for battle. "That didn't mean I wanted to stay," he seethed.

"This is the safest place for you!" She cried out. _Push, push, push._

"Liar."

"_Why_ were you on the run in the first place?"

Draco scoffed in her face before turning back around to face the vast expanse of land. "It always comes down to that, doesn't it? Information – information to fill that empty hole made by how _helpless_ you are. How does it feel? To be so fucking _insignificant_? To have nobody even _notice_ you?"

"Fuck you, Malfoy," she whispered in a nail biting hiss, arm reaching out to grab his shoulder, turning him around to face her amber eyes that glowed like a deadly poison. Why did he fucking _know so much_?

"Did I hit a nerve there, Granger? Well guess what. You're _pathetic_. You're _nothing _in this War. You don't even fucking _matter_."

"I SAID SHUT IT," she snapped angrily, raw and true, her constructed emotions falling away.

He grinned in thinly veiled satisfaction.

"How about yourself, Malfoy?" She continued, pushing. If she could snap under anger, so could he. "How does it feel to be _noticed_?"

Draco opened his mouth to protest but she interrupted him before he could even speak.

"Don't even start," she bit impulsively, letting the adrenaline ride her. "I do this thing called _listening _and I heard what you said – being _noticed. _How does it _feel_? To be noticed? You _want_ to be insignificant. You _want _to have no fucking part in this War. Yet here you are, running away from demons of the night with the light of everyone they'd killed in their sparkling empty eyes. Because you were _noticed_. And now you're here, talking to a _filthy mudblood_. I _am _looking, Malfoy. And I'm not playing a dangerous game, you are. I don't always get what I want, but I'm going to get you. _Don't_ fucking mess with everything I've built. I _don't_ trust you and that is _not_ a good thing – not for you."

He growled at her words. "I won't pry if you just let me leave."

Hermione gulped down the nervous lump in her throat. She was in the middle of a show – calculating her move before he could even make his. She was going to _get this_.

Shrugging, her eyes focused on him evenly, _focused_ on her target. "It's not up to me. Tonks wanted you to stay."

"She let me _leave._ You dragged me here so don't feed me that bullshit."

"I can't stop you from leaving. Be my guest. But you have no idea how far the wards span let alone _where_ you are."

"Fine!" He exclaimed at the infuriating witch, standing up suddenly. "What do you want to know, Granger? Because I think you already know, yourself. I'm a _traitor_. A fucking _traitor_, that's what I am. I _betrayed_ my own side. One _fucking _moral. One last fucking sliver of humanity. They were tiny – couldn't have been more than 10 and sent to the slaughterhouse. I was alone. There was nobody to see – _nobody_."

She sighed as relief crashed into her like a tsunami wave, the tension leaving her shoulders, too tired to place her barriers back up again. "You tried to help them escape."

He laughed bitterly to himself. "Yep."

"And it was noticed."

Draco merely turned around and looked stonily ahead, muscles coiled and tight around his back.

_Shows over, Hermione_, she told herself as her heart beat rapidly underneath her chest. She felt like an animal after its first kill. "Will they leave us alone? The death eaters, I mean. And don't tell me lies just because they sound better."

He chuckled to himself, too exhausted and wound up to notice how perfectly she'd gotten to her destination – his confession. It was too perfect – like a calculated game of chess with the most ideal outcome. "They'll leave you alone once I'm gone."

Hermione rolled her eyes to herself, letting her guard down finally under the cover of darkness. It wasn't as if he was going to notice anyway. He was probably still reeling. She shrugged to herself, nobody noticed her barrier. She didn't know if it was because she was good or just because no-one had room to notice anyone insignificant and that's what she was – insignificant. There was no need to pretend when nobody noticed in the first place.

Either way, she still didn't, _couldn't_ trust anyone. Not yet.

Inhaling deeply, she rubbed her temple due to the ache from releasing such rapid fire concocted emotions that had fried her mind. "Can I tell the others?"

"May as well," he spoke throatily.

The silence bloomed between the two of them like ripple in water and she let it envelop her until the nagging question in her mind overwhelmed her. "Do I still disgust you?"

Draco's breath caught at the question. _You never did_, he wanted to reply but instead, he simply stood up abruptly and stalked back into the room, returning to the soft, damp floor. He fell asleep before he could hear her walk back into the room. _I disgust myself, _he thought.

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* * *

.

He assumed she did tell the others and by some odd unspoken agreement, Tonks smiled at him at him a bit more, Dean bit his tongue around him and Luna just continued to stare. He was still not trusted, of course. Not to be _ever _trusted, probably.

His body creaked with the building as he painfully walked to the faucet, ankle throbbing and neck sore. Hands trembling, he washed the grime from the attack that he had been too tired to notice. Yet now, the revolting and apparently odourless stench of blood on his hands was impossible to ignore. He hadn't even _killed_ in the attack – there was _no blood_ on his hands. But the thing was there was _always _blood on his hands. The smell of iron assaulted his nostrils as his hands seemed pink from the blood that could never be washed away.

"Know where you are yet?"

He turned around suddenly, wet hand already with his wand in place, dripping water.

Hermione raised an eyebrow and he slowly lowered his wand.

"Fuck off."

"It's already been a day. Thought you'd be gone by now or are you reconsidering our offer to stay? I knew you would."

"Leave me alone," he hissed.

She rolled her eyes. _Let's try … cold, analytical and calculating – easy enough._ All she had to do was cut out her emotions. Oh wait, _she already had. _"They are coming you know, Malfoy. You should probably start panicking. Probably should start running – _fast_."

"When did you become an expert on this?" He snapped.

"Since you told me," she drawled lazily.

"I said, _leave,_" Draco spat in frustration.

Hermione eyed him evenly. "Forgot the locating spell, haven't you?"

"No," he spoke to the floor, broad shoulders hunched, neck muscles tense.

"Forgotten the ward identifying spell too, I presume?"

He gave her a withering glare and refused to acknowledge the way her rosy lips were curved into the slightest of smiles. "Never learnt it."

Her eyes widened in astonishment and he could catch her pupils dilating slightly, adjusting to the darkness as the shadow of a cloud protecting the sun's rays stretched across the land. "Really?" She said in honest surprise.

Draco's eyes surveyed her intensely and her resolve momentarily lapsed, her bottom lip trembling infinitesimally. He had the most penetrating of stares, as if he could see right through her, as if he knew _exactly_ that she was hiding. Hermione shook her head mentally before she pushed her barrier back up again. _Cold, calm, calculating – _that's what she was.

"Are you really going to act surprised at my lack of spell knowledge?" He bit. "I thought we were all blundering primates underneath your towering intellectual superiority."

Hermione pushed down the grin that seemed to want to escape. "I had thought Harry was just a blundering primate but apparently he's the wizard meant to save us all."

He raised an eyebrow. "It astounds me no end too."

"I was joking."

He grinned, white teeth flashing between rosy red lips that contrasted violently with his pale ashen skin that benefited none from the cold. "I wasn't."

She shook her head and looked away, embarrassed. "So due to your obvious lack of spell knowledge, I'm assuming You-Know-Who isn't training you?"

He bit his tongue so he couldn't answer. It wasn't fair. How easily she could persuade him into talking. But she wasn't getting a single fucking _thing_ out of him. He opened and closed his hands into fists, eyes a menacing thunderous glow. "Is it your life goal to aggravate me?"

She shrugged. "Probably."

"You're not getting any information."

It was time for her to shoot him a grin. "That's what you said last night and look what happened."

He recalled last night and he angrily chewed his lip. "That shit wasn't even useful."

"I don't care. It shows how easily anger can control you," she said shrugging.

"Excuse me?" He furrowed his brows in incredulity, stepping closer towards her, the warmth easily radiating from their bodies through the frosty air.

Hermione forced herself to ignore the unnerving way his body seemed to exude heat with a fiery intensity. She wondered what it would be like to touch his feverish skin. _Focus, Hermione_. Push. Push. Push. "You've been living for 19 years and you still haven't noticed."

"18," he interrupted.

"What?"

"I'm a year younger."

She shook her head from his sudden redirection. "Right."

"And I don't get angry easily," Draco defended.

She easily slipped back into her original formulated plan. "No, not easily. But once you're angry … You're quite easy to crack."

"You got that from the one proper conversation we've had?" He stated sceptically.

"No. I got that from the one proper conversation in which you told me something. Because I made you _angry_."

He clenched his fists again. "Anger does not control me."

Hermione scoffed before flashing him a grin. "Keep telling yourself that."

"It _doesn't_," he argued.

"Is that your technique when fighting too? Just to project all your anger into a spell? It's not a very efficient method."

"I said –"

"Does it work?" She interrupted again and he resisted the urge to pin her up against the wall to show her how angry he could really get. "Well of course it'd work on muggles," she thought out loud. "But does it work on the death eaters?" She paused and waited for his response in nervous anticipation. _Come on, Draco_.

"Of course it works," he snapped.

She released a deep breath of relief internally. "Really?"

"_Yes_."

_Push_. "Really? All the time? Every time?"

He glared at the infuriating witch before him. "Most."

"How often do you win?"

"_Most_."

She licked her lips and took a step closer into his radiating warmth. "What happens when you lose?"

"_He_ punishes you," Draco bit in annoyance.

"What happens when you win?"

"You don't get punished and you keep learning and pushing your technique to make sure you _never_ lose again."

Hermione sighed loudly, her warm breath ghosting over his neck, leaving goose-bumps in its track and she stepped back. He immediately felt the loss of heat and resisted the urge to step back into her.

Her shoulders relaxed as she eased the tension out of herself. _Good_.

"Hmm," she frowned to herself and he was snapped back into reality.

"Hmm what, Granger?" He snapped.

Hermione rolled her eyes. "Hmm, I didn't get you angry this time and still…"

"Still what?" He questioned at the exasperating witch.

"Odd."

Draco clenched and unclenched his fists again, mouth curling into a snarl. "What's odd, Granger?" She opened her mouth to speak but he interrupted her. "And give me a fucking straight answer this time."

Hermione widened her eyes marginally in surprise before coughing it away, sliding behind a sleek, pristine barrier of concocted emotions. "Odd that I managed to get information out of you without even getting you angry."

"What information," he glared suspiciously.

She scoffed. "Are you daft, Malfoy? Didn't you just hear what you said?"

"I –"

"Jesus Christ. You-Know-Who doesn't train you. He _pits you against one another_ to force you to train yourself."

"How did you–"

She shrugged, averting her eyes from his penetrative stare.

"Granger," he croaked hoarsely.

She simply smiled and smoothly sidestepped past him, walking out the door to where the rest of the Order members were training in the meadow.

He blinked in rapid succession, fists clenching and unclenching. He recalled not even a single moment where his defences were going to go up. _How _did she do that? Even _he _didn't notice.

But now, he noticed _her_.

**AN: Wow. 4 chapters. Okay it's not much of a feat. But nevertheless, ****I hope you enjoyed this and as always, review if you'd like to encourage me along this journey!**


	5. Disease

**********DISCLAIMER: JK Rowling owns all entities associated with Harry Potter and this fanfiction is in no way making a profit for myself personally.**

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**Chapter 5: Disease**

One week he'd been here – one fucking week. An _entire _week filled of absolutely _nothing_. His body was taut and wrung for no purpose. His nerves were stretched, senses on overdrive, anxiety clawing at his skin like ice, cold poison.

Each day at the crack of dawn he would walk out, walk as far as he could, trying in _vain _to feel the familiar sensation of magic at the edge of the wards. Each night, he would return into the shack with frozen fingers and clothes wet from melted snow. Each day they would watch him walk out and watch him walk back in.

Each night he would watch her in the dull glow of candlelight. Each night he would watch her hair dance in a fiery blaze, casting mangled shadows on the sterile, white walls. Each night he would watch her talk to her peers. Each night he would watch her perfectly constructed emotions. Each night he would watch her expression waver for an infinitesimal moment before retreating back behind her carefully built walls. Each night he would watch her eyes flicker towards him in wariness like a wolf sniffing out new territory. Each night he would watch her collapse on the floorboards, her shoulders slumping in defeat from the agonising exhaustion that plagued her like a disease. Each night for a week and each night he would wonder. It wasn't his place to wonder, he knew that.

But each night she would speak to him for a moment and he would watch her slowly fall apart with beautifully raw emotions being drawn out.

Nevertheless, he _refused _to care. Why on earth would he care? Why on earth would he even _think _about her? Why on earth would he wonder about what the final thing was that made her crack? Why on earth would he wonder about what the last straw for her was before she stopped trusting anyone all together?

But his thoughts were cut short by a painfully familiar voice.

"Still here?"

He ground his teeth together, his previous wonder being replaced by frustration. How could it be possible that one person could move him from the one end of the emotional spectrum to the other in a heartbeat? From bitter self-loathing to red, hot anger. From unparalleled wonder to teeth-grinding frustration. "How hard is it to _leave me the fuck alone_?"

Hermione raised her eyebrows and grinned. "I'm just beginning to doubt your supposed legendary skills seeing as you _still_ haven't found the edge of the wards."

"It would be a lot easier if you just _told me_."

"And what's the fun in that?"

"I don't understand why your wards have to expand so fucking _far_. Isn't it inconvenient for visitors?"

She watched him with steady eyes and frowned. "It's for our own safety. The further away we keep enemies, the better. Besides, we don't have visitors."

"Why don't you have any visitors?"

She laughed. "You really don't know anything do you?"

"_Granger_," he bit in annoyance.

She rolled her eyes. "Because who has time to check up on us when there's a fucking _war_ going on? Nobody is going to go out of their way to make sure we're safe."

"Seems like a pleasant arrangement seeing as your keeping a death eater_ hostage_."

"I thought you said you weren't on their side," she questioned.

"Doesn't mean I'm not a death eater."

Hermione frowned. "How?"

"I have the mark, don't I?"

"How does that label who you are?"

Draco curled and uncurled his fingers, seething at the personal questions. "Right _sorry_, Granger. It doesn't label me as a death eater; it labels me as a fucking _traitor_."

She offered him a tentative smile, wondering if this tiny slip of her defences was worth it just to see how he would respond. "Better than death eater," she murmured.

His lips quirked upwards and she ignored the pounding in her heart. Opening his mouth, he began to speak when the tell tale sound of a spell whizzing past his ear caught his attention.

Fuck.

Maybe it'd just been a misaimed spell from the Order.

Maybe it'd just been an accident.

Maybe it was harmless.

Maybe the wall opposite him wasn't burning to a crisp where the spell had hit the already creaking wood.

Hermione watched him with wide, radiant, amber eyes in a panic-stricken moment where their limbs froze a blissful second before bursting into action. He threw her down in a flurry of limbs and she attempted push him off indignantly, her harsh breath against his neck.

"Stupefy," he heard her call, muffled against his skin with her wand aimed behind him, their legs tangling as she shoved him off.

He directed his wand behind them, shooting spells at random as he heard her draw up a wavering shield. Perfection captured in a moment. She was so comfortable, so ready, so prepared in this destroyed moment that was never meant to exist. War was never meant to exist. But she was at home. She was at home in _War_.

And he was paralysed by her. He was paralysed by her raw, delicate emotions that were as hard as steel.

"Malfoy!" He heard her call, muffled behind the deafening thrum of blood in his ears.

"Granger," Draco murmured, soft as the beating of a bird's wings.

"MALFOY," she yelled in his ear and he felt himself snapping back into action – the vision of a perfect soldier.

Her back found the wall and she used it as leverage to pull herself up, dragging him along with her.

"YOUR THEORY OF KEEPING THE ENEMIES AS FAR AS YOU CAN OBVIOUSLY DIDN'T WORK," he yelled, nearly eating her hair.

"WE DIDN'T GET NOTIFIED WHEN THE WARDS WENT DOWN."

"AND WHO'S FAULT―SHIELD, GRANGER." The shield flew out of her wand the second he called out the warning, harmful spells disintegrating at the fragile barrier before it shattered into pieces. "AND WHOSE FAULT WAS THAT? Avada―"

"YOUR GODDAMN DEATH EATER HUNTERS KNEW HOW TO MAKE SURE THE SIGNAL DIDN'T GET SENT."

"_OBVIOUSLY. _HOW IDIOTIC CAN YOU GET? THESE AREN'T NORMAL―FUCK, THE SHIELD, GRANGER."

"I APOLOGISE IF I WAS BEING IDIOTIC BUT HOW DO WE STOP THEM FROM INTERCEPTING THE SIGNAL?"

He kicked out the window frame, launching himself through it, glass shards glistening like diamonds in his hair. "SHIELD, GRANGER," he warned again and she rolled her eyes at him. "YOU CAN'T FUCKING STOP THEM BUT YOU CAN CHANGE THE FUCKING WARDS SO THAT THEY CAN'T HACK INTO IT AGAIN."

"NOW?"

His hands preoccupied with helping her out of the window, the shields fell again and a dangerously close spell shot past them. "_SURE_, WHY NOT? CHANGE THE WARDS RIGHT NOW WHEN THERE ARE A BUNCH OF DEATH EATERS ALREADY_WITHIN THEM _TRYING TO _KILL _US. YOU'RE FUCKING MENTAL, GRANGER."

Her eyes met his and he was enraptured for a second by the deadly glisten of glazed eyes and dilated pupils. "Well there are actually only 2," she contemplated as she fell out of the window frame and into his open arms.

"Are you fucking_ kidding _me," he hissed, once grey eyes nearly black.

"Well―"

"Only _two_. Only fucking _two._ You saw them last time, Granger! ONLY TWO? THEY'VE SLAUGHTERED TOWNS AND YOU'RE FUCKING―"

"ARE WE REALLY GOING TO DO THIS RIGHT NOW?" She interrupted.

"SURE," he rolled his eyes. "We've got _plenty _of time to bicker, SEEING AS YOU THOUGHT IT LOGICAL TO FUCKING CHANGE THE WARDS RIGHT _NOW_."

"LET IT GO, MALFOY."

"_SHIELD, GRANGER_," he called hoarsely, sprinting down the hill, gravity aiding him in hurling his body down.

"WHY DON'T YOU DO THE GODDAMN SHIELD THEN," her distant voice could be heard from behind him.

Too far behind. She was too far behind. She was too fucking far behind. He stopped and turned around, his body lurching forwards from the sudden change in velocity. Granger. Granger. Granger. Her name thrummed in his mind. He _needed_ to make sure they got out of this together. She was not going to die because of him. She saved his life. She saved his _life_. She was _not_ going to die because of him.

"_Draco,_" a silken voice, smooth as scales sliced through the heavy air straight to his eardrums and all thoughts were banished from his mind. "_You can't run forever."_

His entire body froze in a trance-like state until all he could hear was the loud drumming in his ears – beating in a frenzied staccato like a Spanish dance. He felt the grip he had on his wand loosening and he was struck with the absolute abhorred anxiety and panic that infected him like an epidemic before he saw her hurtling towards him, head turned in the direction she was coming from and wand steadily aimed at the pair of tall, lanky figures that stood at the top of the hill. He watched her with a captivated gaze until her firm and _very warm _body came crashing into him.

"Malfoy!" Hermione yelled in recognition as they tumbled down the rest of hill, reaching the flat ground in a tangle of limbs. "Shield! Malfoy, fuck. _Shield_," she shouted, his body tingling from the mild paralysis as she blasted continuous spells from her wand. "Malfoy, _please_."

His body shot up in adrenaline fuelled frenzied movements, responding to her call, arm faltering as he cast a small bubble shield around them.

They watched each other, wide-eyed in a moment of eerie silence before the moment came crashing on them once again. She reached out to hold onto his hand and his eyes flickered to a stormy grey. "Granger, what are you―" He began before darkness stole his breath.

.

* * *

.

"_Fuck_," Draco cursed, hands reaching out to steady himself. "I told you to _never_ do that again."

His eyes adjusted to the low lighting, arms reaching out to steady himself against a tree-trunk.

"Where the hell are we?"

He turned around, disturbing the soft snow that had laid to rest on the frost covered ground.

"Granger?" He murmured after there was no response. "Granger, where are you?"

A small cough could be heard and he looked down to see her slumped against the base of a tree.

He rolled his eyes. "Come on, get up. Where the hell are we?"

"Some place in Ireland, I think," she rasped, weakly as he pulled her up by the collar.

"You _think_?"

Staggering on her feet, she lifted her head, chestnut hair blowing back to frame her face that was pale and pink from the cold. "What does it matter to you anyway? There are no wards to stop you. Just _leave_," she snapped.

He glared at her figure before speaking. "Do you know where the rest of the Order are?"

"Does it look like I know?" She bit, eyes flashing.

Draco opened and closed his mouth. "Right," he said slowly, drawing out each letter for as long as possible.

"I said just _leave_," she spat, venomously.

"How are you going to find them?"

She stood up rapidly in a blazing fire of hair. "Why do you care anyway?"

He narrowed his eyes at her. "I _don't_."

"THEN JUST _LEAVE_," she shouted.

"Why the fuck are so temperamental?" He argued hotly.

"_LEAVE_."

He stared at her hard, once stormy grey eyes turning into hard slate. "I don't get you, Granger. You're fucking mental."

"Not everything is what it seems."

"No," Draco murmured. "It isn't." He felt his body softening, relaxing and he felt himself stepping forwards, almost as if to reach out for her.

Hermione flinched away from him and the moment was shattered. "I said _LEAVE_, Malfoy."

He glared at her, angrily, body heating up despite the cold from the red-hot frustration that coursed through his veins. He stormed towards her in aggravation. "You know what, Granger? I don't even know why I'm doing this. You're right, I should just _leave._ But why aren't I? I must be going _mad_ – absolutely fucking _insane._ You're annoying. You're stubborn. You're arrogant. You're pretentious. You're―"

"_Excuse me_?" She interrupted. "_Pretentious_. When have I ever given you any sign that I'm _pretentious_?"

"Let me _finish_, Granger. You're fucking _crazy_. You're snarky and your wit literally _scares _me. You're frustrating to no end. You don't know when to stop but you know exactly when to start. You understand _nothing _I sayand yet you understand _everything. _I saw you in battle out there and you seemed _so at home_. And that just seems so _wrong_ – the fact that you're so comfortable in battle. How can that be, Granger? I can see what's going on with you. Hell, I even _understand_. But what I don't understand is _how_. How can that possibly happen? How can you _let _yourself let it happen? So yeah, I can't leave. I can't fucking leave, Granger. You saved my life when your own is crumbling into pieces. I can't leave knowing that you're like this. I can't. I― Granger, I don't even understand myself and yet here I am trying to understand you. You plague me like a disease."

He drew a deep breath and he saw her watching him with clouded eyes, pupils dilated, and breath harsh against his throat.

"Granger?" He murmured after she didn't respond.

"I didn't hear anything after my wit scaring you," she said weakly before her knees buckled and she tipped forwards towards him.

His arms immediately caught her in surprise, cautiously bringing her to the ground. "Shit, are you okay?"

"Fine," she croaked hoarsely, her once rapid breath growing faint.

He pulled away from her fractionally and glanced down to where her hand was pressed against the side of her stomache, old blood crusting on her skin and new blood continuously seeping out from between her fingers.

He immediately wrenched himself completely away from her. "Fuck. When did that happen, Granger?"

She looked weakly up at him, her face white as ivory and lids heavy. "Hey," she murmured.

He widened his eyes, perplexed. "Hey, yourself," he spoke back gently. "Why didn't you tell me this―"

"Would you care?"

Draco frowned. "I―"

"Exactly."

"Look, I'm not a heartless bastard okay. I just―"

"Leave."

"No."

She narrowed her eyes pointlessly. He was too engrossed to notice; his vision clouded by a sea of blood. "Are you just going to stay and watch me as I pathetically try to stop dying?"

"That's fucking―"

"―barbaric, I know. But I wouldn't put it past you."

"Look here, Granger. You sure know how to go down difficult."

"I get to be difficult. I'm the one dying, right?"

"No."

Her eyes focused momentarily at him, straight nose with skin as pale as hers now and white hair illuminated into a halo of painfully bright white gold from the dappled sunlight that poured through the canopy above them. "Excuse me?"

"No," he said firmly. "You're not going to die."

"When you're done playing God, maybe you can join Luna and try finding some nargles."

"You're appallingly bad at sarcasm."

Hermione hissed lowly, body tense. "Well that's to be expected seeing as I've got about half of my stomache cut out," she forced out the words between clenched teeth.

"Granger," he murmured, softly.

Sighing, she let her head fall to the cold, hard ground, finding it too much effort to keep it up anymore. "Malfoy," she spoke dejectedly.

"You saved my life, Granger," he mumbled to himself, leaning forwards as if he was being drawn involuntarily into her warmth that was rippling off of her in waves.

"Mal―"

"Where's your bag?" Draco interrupted.

"What―"

His arm slid from between the two of their bodies and to her side, tugging at the beaded bag until it was pulled away from her shoulder.

"What are you doing?" She protested.

Draco ignored her and began digging frantically through the bag, pulling out various clothes and dusty, old books. With a hard tug, a large wooden briefcase that certainly didn't come out of the bag's small opening easily fell into his lap. The locks on the briefcase snapped open in a crack that sounded ear-splitting in the anxious silence.

A vile scent of whatever ingredients the briefcase contained assaulted his nostrils the minute the lid swung open but he ignored it because there was an even stronger fragrance of iron that lay heavy in the air as if a blanket. He shook out the contents and found a miniature cauldron the size of a test tube, throwing various and inaccurate amounts of ingredients while muttering charms underneath his breath.

"Malfoy, please. You don't have to. There's no point anyway," she urged, voice feeble and frail in the ménage of heated breaths, faint cursing and dull thuds of his wand tapping the copper surface of the cauldron impatiently.

"How can you say that there isn't any point, Granger?" He snapped back, animatedly.

"Malfoy…" Hermione spoke, the word barely above a feathered whisper.

"How can you possibly say that there isn't a point? There's no point in me running – I'm going to die anyway. But look at me, I'm _still running_. Maybe it's cowardice, maybe it's fear or maybe because as long as I keep on running, there is still a _chance_."

Her hand reached out, wavering in the air from the effort before grasping onto the thin fabric of his sweater, right below his chest. "Please. There's no point with this. I know the spell and―"

"―Yes. Sectumsempra."

"But it's been―"

"―genetically modified if you will."

"And that means the wound―"

"―will never close, if I understand correctly."

"Then how―"

"_Because I can_, _Granger_," he hissed and it was as if all the air within was released in a harsh, terrible breath that slithered through between his teeth – the air was in agony. _She_ was in agony.

She could feel the deafening pound of blood in her ears and yet her head seemed lightheaded as if there wasn't _enough_ blood. Ofcourse there wasn't enough blood – half of what she had was on the ground. Her entire body seemed numb and yet the consistent excruciating pain tore through her body in waves. She saw the pitch black darkness of night and yet all she could see was the swimming mess of platinum gold her that guided her like an anchor. She was nothing and yet she was everything.

"You're absolutely crazy," she breathed, letting the words stretch and elongate in the vast, empty air – spreading and condensing, thinning and thickening.

He curled up beside her, his feverish warmth against her frozen skin.

And that was the last thing she felt.

An enchanting liquid slid down her throat, cold as venom yet as hot as poison.

And that was the last thing she tasted.

"_Please."_

And that was the last thing she heard.

**AN. YOOOOO. Well it has probably been a few months since the last update whoops. WELL. I have no excuse, I'm sorry. I was busy with school and then busy with nothing at all. Anyway, after slaving over this chapter (not really but I'll let you guys feel bad for me), it is uploaded! I also changed my username to coincide with my tumblr url so yeah, I'M STILL THE SAME PERSON :D **

**Have a great day and hopefully you guys aren't to angry at me and decide to review?**


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